Vincent Desiderio - Sleeping Family [1990]

Vincent Desiderio - Sleeping Family [1990], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Vincent Desiderio (born Philadelphia, 1955) is an American realist painter.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 163.8 x 213.4 cm]

Zoey Frank - White Jacket

Zoey Frank - White Jacket, a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

See: www.zoeyfrank.com/paintings/still-life/white-jacket

[Oil on linen, 22 x 30 inches]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Baptismal Procession of Prince Juan through the Streets of Seville [1910]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Baptismal Procession of Prince Juan through the Streets of Seville [1910], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

This painting depicts the baptism of Prince Juan. It is based on the description of that event from Historia de los Reyes Católicos (History of the Catholic Kings) by Andrés Bernáldez, published in 1856. The documentary rigour of this text is transferred to the canvas, so we can speak here of the archeological veracity with which Pradilla reconstructed that historical event.

The refined drawing is combined with the use of rich and brilliant colours. The scene is nuanced by a strong light that leaves broad areas of the canvas in shadows, creating a certain degree of visual sensationalism.

This is one of the artist's last history paintings and was made late in his career, when his taste for anecdote and ornamentation took precedence over the gravity of the even being represented. The monumental figures of his youth give way, in this work, to a greater wealth of decoration, with the presence of numerous secondary figures.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 193 x 403 cm]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Queen Juana Confined at Tordesillas with Her Daughter [1906]

Francisco Pradilla y Ortiz - Queen Juana Confined at Tordesillas with Her Daughter [1906], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

In keeping with his interest in Queen Juana, Pradilla painted this painting of the queen's confinement in Tordesillas Castle, where she spent the rest of her life alongside the cadaver of her husband. Juana sits besides a window in a palace room with a Gothic fireplace. Lost in thought, she gazes at the viewer without noticing her daughter's play. A lady in waiting and a servant on the right contemplate the scene with some sadness. An open door in the background offers a view of the coffin with the body of Felipe “el Hermoso.”

Pradilla abandoned the grandiloquence of enormous history paintings from earlier decades in order to make a small cabinet painting. The studied setting, archeological and historical knowledge used here with a certain eclecticism of clothing and furnishings, are combined with a finished and very polished technique. Those aspects prevent this work from being considered a sketch for a larger painting on the same subject, making this a magnificent example of Pradilla's new pictorial tendencies with regard to history paintings: small format works.

[Museo Nacional del Prado - Oil on canvas, 85 x 146 cm]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Caligua’s Palace and Bridge [c.1831]

Joseph Mallord William Turner - Caligua’s Palace and Bridge [c.1831], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

The subject of this painting is an episode from Suetonius’s Life of the Emperor Caligula. Confounding a prediction that he would no more become emperor than ride across the Gulf of Baiae with horses, Caligula constructed an artificial floating bridge of boats which he then crossed with a chariot. Following popular accounts, Turner has depicted the bridge as a solid construction. It has, however, like the adjacent palace, fallen into ruin and decay. 

The picture was widely admired in 1831. The Times described it as ‘one of the most beautiful and magnificent landscapes that ever mind conceived or pencil drew’.

[Tate Gallery, London - Oil on canvas, 1372 x 2463 mm]

Samuel Scott - The Building of Westminster Bridge [c.1740s]

Samuel Scott - The Building of Westminster Bridge [c.1740s], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

To the left in this view of London and the Thames River is the still unfinished Westminster Bridge. Behind it from left to right are Saint Johns, Smith Square, Westminster Hall, Westminster Abbey, and the tower of Saint Margaret's church. Work on Westminster Bridge began in 1738 and was completed in 1750. It is shown here in approximately the state it would have reached by 1742.

The canvas also shows a rehearsal of the water-borne procession of a newly elected Lord Mayor of London to Westminster Hall. The barge bears the arms of the Ironmongers Company, and the picture must therefore refer to the election as Lord Mayor of Sir Joseph Pennant, Alderman of the Ironmongers Company, in 1749. Five variants of the composition are known.

[Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York - Oil on canvas, 61 x 112.7 cm]

Antonio Muñoz Degrain - Lovers of Teruel [1884]

Antonio Muñoz Degrain - Lovers of Teruel [1884], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Dying of love is a theme often drawn from legendary literature, and was recurrent in nineteenth-century Spanish painting. Beginning with the story Juan Yagüe found in the Archives of the Moot Halls of Teruel, Degrain depicts the impossible love between Isabel Segura and the impoverished nobleman, Diego de Marsilla, which occurred in 1212. The painter chooses the tragic outcome of the two lover's passion: in the dark interior of the church of San Pedro in Teruel, the body of Diego de Marsilla lies wrapped in his warrior's garb. It rests on a casket covered with roses and laurels in homage to his triumphs as a knight. On his chest rests the head of his beloved, who has just breathed her last breath after kissing the lips of her eternal and impossible love.

The modern manner in which the paint is applied allows the artist to achieve great expressivity. This, and the exciting colours and powerful Mediterranean light are the work's most striking elements. The balanced composition and the adaptation of the figures to the space reveal Degrain's highly correct academicism. This work was acquired for the Prado Museum in 1884 and was later sent to the Museum of Modern Art.

[Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid - Oil on canvas, 330 x 516 cm]